I disagree, Polly. Seeking to understand something doesn't "undo" a person. One can accept that gravity exists and still wonder how it might be proved (maybe we just really have very sticky feet).
I disagree, Polly. Seeking to understand something doesn't "undo" a person. One can accept that gravity exists and still wonder how it might be proved (maybe we just really have very sticky feet).
When I got out of the Air Force and went into the Fin Adv business it threw me for a loop when you could present a plan that was very prudent and addressed a clients needs and they wouldn't take action. Most people don't take action based on logic (military is void of emotion in planning) people take action based on feeling good about their decision.
The hard part about seeking understanding of a WAS is not to take things personally. You present a good argument logically about why not get this over with. But STBX- Mrs Smiley is still full of feelings, emotions and fears about her marriage and family. IMO you keep pricking those fears to keep some sort of contact in place. Let her deal with her snakes on her own. Let her go, become the WAS, drop the rope, detach and keep being a great Dad.
Next time she goes off on you just tell her, "it must really be hard being you, I am sorry if I am contributing to your misery in any way." Agree with her and walk away. If you truly seek understanding then let it unfold. It's not your place to rescue her from her decisions. Agree with her and watch the drama go away. Nothing to argue about when you are both on the same side. She brings up D talk just defer to your L.
Compassion, empathy, love (philia) and strong boundaries. Einstein couldn't use logic to figure out women.
Quote:
"Some men spend a lifetime in an attempt to comprehend the complexities of women. Others pre-occupy themselves with somewhat simpler tasks, such as understanding the theory of relativity!
A few facts always ruin a good academic argument. Debates over feelings have no facts that appear on the surface, the feelings are deep in the soul and triggered by past memories. Create new healthy memories based on the triggers and the dynamic has changed. Stop asking her to defend her negative thoughts and actions. Just agree that she must be hurting. Watch the dynamic change.
Cheers Mate
M22,H45,W45 S21/18D12 Retain faith that you will prevail in the end, regardless of the difficulties and at the same time confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be.
Just to be clear, though, the "things I don't understand" post was me musing to myself - not actual words I've said to STBX.
I get it, you wouldn't be you if you couldn't learn something from this. Let STBX be herself and figure it out her way. That's also a boundary - you are you in all your glory and she is herself in all her glory.
M22,H45,W45 S21/18D12 Retain faith that you will prevail in the end, regardless of the difficulties and at the same time confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be.
Yet more evidence in support of the hypothesis that STBX was abducted by aliens, vaporized with Dark Matter, and replaced by a Bizarro World cyborg replicant terminator: she's gone off for the weekend with her boyfriend.
Treasonous wench! I blow my nose at her with her so-called Arthur King -- him and his silly English ka-nnnnnnnnnnigits!
Interesting to note the early version of the vuvuzela in this clip.
M22,H45,W45 S21/18D12 Retain faith that you will prevail in the end, regardless of the difficulties and at the same time confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be.
Was helping Good Christian Man Friend pack -- he's relocating to be near his fiancee -- and we were chit-chatting and chat-chitting and he asked about the World o' Walkaways and what did I miss most about being married to STBX?
And I puzzled three hours 'til my puzzler was sore.
For the life of me, I couldn't remember. Not only could I not remember what I miss about being married to STBX -- not as a "real" memory, that is, as a sensory memory as opposed to a kind of intellectual abstraction -- I couldn't remember what it felt like to be married to STBX. "When was the last time you knew it was good?" asked GCMF.
And even with the blows of Mjolnir upside my rusty brain pan, I couldn't generate so much as a twinge of a ghost of a hint of a recollection of a shadow of a time when I affirmatively felt warmly towards her. I know I did. At least, I think I did. But I couldn't access it. It was like reading history -- you can know what happened to some historical figure, but you can't know it. You know?
1987 we met. Apart now 18 months. And the shadow of those 18 months is so long and so deep that it has snuffed out the dimly flickering candlelight of remembrance. And in a weird way, I sort of mourn the loss of remembrance more than I mourn the loss of STBX. It's as if the totality of divorce is so...well, total...that it takes away even the fleeting pleasure of Remember When.
Long story short: STBX got some nerve injury on her last out-of-area adventure. She's been to the barber thrice this week. She's on vaguely heavy pain meds. It's also her custody time. She insists on keeping the time. Themselves are trying to be brave, but the sight of a parent-in-pain is frightening to them. Neither one of us really has anyone "here" -- we were always the "here" person for each other.
So. If I offer to watch Themselves, prepare their meals (and, incidentally, feed Herself as well, since there would obviously be food), and make myself available on an as-needed basis while she works through this injury... is that rescuing? Is that sticking my nose in "her" time (a la @Gypsy)?
Or is it just doing what needs to be done? I don't want to DB this woman, but look -- this is a divorce, not a suicide mission. She's stubborn, but even she's not so stubborn that she'll kill herself (metaphorically) simply to look "good."
So should I kill myself -- which I'd be doing, psychically, with worry -- and remain the Paragon of Solitary Manitude?
Or should I just be what I am -- a sap of a father -- and pitch in when it's needed?
What would you need if the roles were reversed? A day after a surgical procedure (with a six week recovery time) while married, the former spouse left for a two week business trip. It happened often. I called in the help of friends since I, too, was without anyone 'here'.
Would you make an offer to assist with time with the kids and return them at night?
Allow her to make her own decisions and decide if she really needs your help or not?
Parenting is a worrisome time with or without a nuclear family. The kids will not wither away and die while they're with their mother.
In the end your worry is presumptive and controlling. You are deciding that their mother is incapable in caring for her children when she is not 100%.
Let her make her own decisions, not what makes you feel better to ease your assumptions.
No, I'm not deciding that. I'm evaluating my experience of her, and my knowledge of her, and her past actions and past statements ("I'm more important than they are"), and my experience of their experiences with her ("all mommy had in the house to eat was cereal and soda pop").
And I'm wondering whether I can be available to help without violating my own boundary.
I don't have to surrender my fatherhood just because they're sleeping under someone else's roof -- someone who hasn't exactly shown the soundest judgment in the last 2 years, by her own admission.
Would your reaction have been different if instead of pain medication it had been unsecured firearms? Well, they might accidentally blow each other's heads off, but oh well - you're assuming she hasn't given each of them comprehensive weapons-handling instruction.
So if you want to talk about assumptions, you might consider starting by abandoning the assumption that every woman has your maternal skill-set.
As recently as the month she moved out of the house STBX did not know how to change batteries in smoke detectors. And you might recall, she asked if I could check out some work in her bathroom she was hiring an electrician for, because the light suddenly stopped working. After changing the bulb, I assured her an electrician would be unnecessary.
Where I live children do die from being with parents who don't quite get it. Mine are not going to be somebody's Mulligan.
